When a taxpayer records a loss on a passive activity, only passive activity profits can have their deductions offset instead of the income as a whole. It would be considered prudent for a person to ensure all the passive activities were classified that way so they can make the most of the tax deduction. These deductions are allocated for the next tax year and are applied in a reasonable manner that takes into account the next year's earnings or losses.
My goal is to generate enough passive income (ultimately; for the next few years, I’m definitely working for it both with a day job and property managing my investments) to do what I want, when I want, how I want, and where I want. We all define that “what, when, how, and where” differently, and to each of us, financial freedom means something different.
Investors turn to real estate as a way to build long-term wealth, earn additional income, and generate a tax shelter. Using real estate as a tax shelter that extends to other income can be a complicated process. Knowing how you can use any losses generated by your rental real estate starts with understanding how the IRS defines and treats passive and active income.
You can offset deductions from passive activities of a PTP only against income or gain from passive activities of the same PTP. Likewise, you can offset credits from passive activities of a PTP only against the tax on the net passive income from the same PTP. This separate treatment rule also applies to a regulated investment company holding an interest in a PTP for the items attributable to that interest.
For tax years beginning after January 24, 2010, the following disclosure requirements for groupings apply. You’re required to report certain changes to your groupings that occur during the tax year to the IRS. If you fail to report these changes, each trade or business activity or rental activity will be treated as a separate activity. You will be considered to have made a timely disclosure if you filed all affected income tax returns consistent with the claimed grouping and make the required disclosure on the income tax return for the year in which you first discovered the failure to disclose. If the IRS discovered the failure to disclose, you must have reasonable cause for not making the required disclosure.

Lending Club went public in 2014 and is now worth about $1.7B. They advertise P2P lending returns of over 7% for well-diversified portfolios of over 100 notes. I’ve personally been able to achieve a 7.4% annual return over the past two years in a completely passive way by investing in A and AA notes. Others have achieved a 10% annual return through relatively minimum effort.

Non-fiction e-books that educate your potential audience on specific topics like finance, online marketing, and business are going to make you more money than fiction books. Of course, there are always exceptions and you could write the next Harry Potter book, but if you want to create some residual income opportunities quickly, I would suggest you go for what sells first!

The reason I consider dividends artificial and believe they don’t matter is because you can just as easily reinvest your dividends. If a stock is worth $100/share, I don’t care if it issues a $1/share dividend or if the share price instead increases to $101/share – either way, I have the same amount of money, because there’s no difference to my net worth whether I take the dividend or sell part of a stock.

The age old argument of total return versus income has been, incorrectly imo, categorized as an either or proposition. We are going to do both. Right now I have a lot cash in an on line money market. I also have investments in 2 passive Index funds in a taxable account. We then have substantial 401ks/IRA’s which we won’t touch for at least 10 years. My wife will continue to max out her sep and we will continue to invest in the index funds although with a smaller amount. We have already factored that in. I looked at how to cut into the monthly deficit. Here is what I observed.
If you have specialized knowledge in a certain topic, you can put together an online course to teach others. For example, if you have experience in real estate investing, you can create an online course “Real Estate Investing 101”. The benefit of an online course is that once you create the course material, you can sell it to as many people as you want.
Perhaps a coworker purposefully tries to make your life miserable because they resent your success. Maybe you get passed over for a promotion and a raise because you weren’t vocal enough about your abilities, and mistakenly thought you worked in a meritocracy. Or maybe you have a new boss who decides to clean house and hire her own people. Whatever the case may be, you will eventually tire.
It may also be possible to stagger dispositions of investments between calendar years. For example, if there will already be more than $150,000 of AAII in one year, consider triggering additional capital gains in that year, rather than the next, if that might reduce AAII below the threshold in the next year. Conversely, you may wish to trigger capital gains or losses in a specific year because capital losses cannot be carried forward to a future year for purposes of reducing AAII. As a result, you may wish to realize capital losses and gains in the same taxation year.
Under the new rules, the active income a business is allowed to claim at the small business amount is tied to the business’ passive income. Businesses with less than $50,000 in annual passive income can claim the full $500,000 at the 9% small business rate. The amount eligible for the small business rate shrinks by $5 for every $1 over $50,000 that a business makes in passive income, until it eventually reaches zero.
Investing in coins and collectibles: Buffalo nickels and Spiderman comic books are good examples of coins and collectibles that can rise in value, and thus offer opportunity for passive income investors. You'll need to get up to speed on the value of any coin or collectible under consideration, but once you do so, you're on the way to price appreciation on a commodity you'll be paying a lower price to buy, and will garner a higher price when you sell.

Since David may never be coming back to this site, If anyone other than David can point me in the right direction, Id greatly appreciate it. I live in Chicago, and I need to buy a quality rental to hold long term somewhere but I have no idea where, and I really don’t want to buy in Chicago. Chicago is insanely corrupt and in HUGE debt. I cant leave Chicago in the near term, I take care of an aging parent, and if I left, my salary would drop by 50%. Id still like to diversify into a rental property.. but I feel that if I just call up a stranger, they’d attempt to sell me their best pig with lipstick, and pressure me to jump on the deal before someone else ‘stole’ it. I have no problem hiring a property inspector from a different city, but don’t want to waste hundreds of dollars if the agent is steering us towards crap property after crap property. I’m looking for broad advice. Any constructive reply appreciated. Thanks guys.

Airbnb is a concept that has only been around for a few years, but it has exploded around the globe. Airbnb allows people to travel all around the world and to stay in accommodations that are a lot less expensive than traditional hotels. They do this by staying with participating Airbnb members who rent out part of their homes to travelers. By participating in Airbnb, you can use your residence to accommodate guests and earn extra money just for renting out space in your home.

The same analysis would apply to a situation where a CCPC carrying on a real estate property realizes a capital gain upon the sale of one of its rental properties. The RDTOH generated from the capital gain, would now be refunded to the corporation only upon the payment of a dividend that is not an Eligible Dividend sourced from the passive income. As a result, the additional 4% personal income tax cannot be postponed at the individual level while having at the same time the corporation benefit from the RDTOH refund.
If you love design and you are an artistic person, selling digital products on Etsy could be a great way to earn passive income. Digital products require little maintenance, your customers will simply receive a link to download them (which means you don’t have to worry about shipping and returns handling). All you need to do is spend time upfront to create beautiful artwork! (Easy right?)
Active participation depends on all the facts and circumstances. Factors that indicate active participation include making decisions involving the operation or management of the activity, performing services for the activity, and hiring and discharging employees. Factors that indicate a lack of active participation include lack of control in managing and operating the activity, having authority only to discharge the manager of the activity, and having a manager of the activity who is an independent contractor rather than an employee.
Income tax is a cost of doing business and that cost carries over into the business of real estate ownership and operations. In July 2017, in the depths of the summer, the Federal Department of Finance (“Finance”) announced drastic changes that would have changed that cost of doing business for those owning shares of a Canadian controlled private corporation (“CCPC”). When ultimately distributed to the individual shareholder in the form of a dividend, investment income earned on the retained earnings generated from an active business would have cost the shareholder an ultimate income tax rate equal to 73% of the investment income. These proposed changes to the “passive income” rules were very complex and would have had the potential to shift the after-tax return for CCPCs while leaving the tax burden of public corporations, foreign corporations and tax-exempt entities unaffected.
I wouldn't think of a high yield savings account as a source of passive income but your savings should be getting something (less like Seinfeld syndication residuals and more like a commercial jingle residuals!). It won't make you rich but it's nice if your baseline, risk-free rate of return on cash is 1% or more. The best high yield savings accounts (or money market accounts) offer higher interest rate and there is absolutely no risk. CIT Bank currently leads the pack with the highest interest rate.
5. Depreciation: Otherwise known as depreciation losses, depreciation tax write-offs are essentially the most important tax deduction in a passive income investor’s arsenal. As their name suggests, depreciation losses permit the owners of rental properties to write off the cost of the home over a predetermined period of time. The subject property is essentially a business expense, and therefore can be written off.
While reading a very interesting book recently about the conquest of the Northwestern Territory (it’s Ohio, not Oregon for those of you who aren’t history buffs) I realized that the founding fathers of the US were all unabashed capitalists. Washington, Hamilton etc all held title to huge tracts of land West of the Appalachians that they had been speculating in for decades. Forming the US Army (a standing army was a big deal to a people who at the time equated a standing army with tyranny) and conquering the Iroquois was, in at least some respects, about profiting on their investments. While WCI readers probably don’t have any plans to conquer other nations, the real point of all this financial stuff we talk about on this blog is to turn yourself into a capitalist as quickly as possible. While capitalism has its issues, it’s still the best economic system we’ve found yet.

Kate, a single taxpayer, has $70,000 in wages, $15,000 income from a limited partnership, a $26,000 loss from rental real estate activities in which she actively participated, and isn’t subject to the modified adjusted gross income phaseout rule. She can use $15,000 of her $26,000 loss to offset her $15,000 passive income from the partnership. She actively participated in her rental real estate activities, so she can use the remaining $11,000 rental real estate loss to offset $11,000 of her nonpassive income (wages).

If you don’t care about lifestyle design, you can just stay at your current job, right? With financial freedom, you can do whatever you want. You can actually start forming lifestyle design before you are financially free too, just like I have. Even though I spend the majority of my time working on my company, I have positioned myself to be completely on my own schedule, I work whenever I want to for as much or as little time as I want, I sleep in most days, I live at the beach, I can stop working in the middle of the day to go have lunch with a friend, go to the gym, walk the dogs or, shoot, stop working completely for the day and do whatever I want instead! Hiking, snowboarding, surfing, margaritas, whatever.
Herbert and Wilma are married and file a joint return. Healthy Food, an S corporation, is a grocery store business. Herbert is Healthy Food's only shareholder. Plum Tower, an S corporation, owns and rents out the building. Wilma is Plum Tower's only shareholder. Plum Tower rents part of its building to Healthy Food. Plum Tower's grocery store rental business and Healthy Food's grocery business aren’t insubstantial in relation to each other.
1. The batting cage idea is very risky. I’ve seen many of them close over the years and it is not anything close to passive income if you want to keep the business going. You have to continually promote it and target youth leagues, coaches, schools etc to catch all of the new players who grow up and want to play. I’ve played at probably 8 batting cages over the years and 7 of them closed.